20 REMARKS ON THE USE OF NAMES. 



N followed by c hard, k, g, or x has a nasal or twanging sound of ng ; as in 

 English ankle, anger, pronounced ang-kle, ang-ger. Preceded by m or g, it does not 

 destroy these letters : as Mniotilta, Gnathodon. 



P is not silent before s ; thus in psaltria articulate both. So in the digraph ph, 

 some direct to sound both, as in up-hill. It is difficult, if not impossible, to 

 articulate both letters, especially when, as often happens, a t/i succeeds. For 

 example, in erythrophthalmus we find that we cannot make four sounds for the 

 phth as in up-hill and hot-house. Practically ph becomes something between / and 

 r, just as in Stephen or Steven. So also the original Indo-European aspirates lh, 

 d/i , yh sure not retained in any European language; there is nothing to correspond 

 to log-house. 



QU is sometimes followed by another M, as in altiloquus. propinquus. It would 

 seem to be rendered by kwooce. 



R is strongly pronounced with a trill. It is heard at the height of its power in 

 the combination rrh ; as in catarrhactes, pyrrhorrhoa. 



S invariably retains its sharp hissing sound. Thus essence is a rhyme with 

 fuscescens (as far as the s-sound is concerned) ; so also virens = virraynce, not 

 vy-renz. Compare hiss or this with his. So particular were the Romans to avoid 

 the z sound of s, that they even altered antecedent consonants ; saying, for example, 

 urps and pleps for urbs and plebs. 



T always preserves its sound. There is nothing to correspond with the English 

 -tion = shun, &c. E.g., gra-ti-a, rat-i-o, init-i-um. 



V is directed b}- some to be sounded like English w in we. But this is rareby 

 done. 



X is always ks or cs, never gz or 2, even when initial, as in Xema, Xanthocephalus. 



Z, which only occurs in Latin words of Greek extraction, is a double letter 

 equivalent to dz, and the best authorities recommend the d sound to be articulated. 

 Thus Aphriza, Spiza, are pronounced Afreedza, Speedza. 



A word in regard to the pronunciation of modern proper names, as of persons and 

 places, so often recurring in ornithology. After mature deliberation, we have decided 

 to mark them for their pronunciation in the language to which they belong. It seems 

 finical and pedantic to attempt to Latinize them ; for to carry out that plan to its 

 logical result would be to give Irunonis instead of browni ; and even then some 

 names would utterly defy us, unless changed bej-ond all recognition. So we have 

 adopted the rule of preserving the orthography and orthoep} 7 of all modern proper 

 names, even though containing the letter w. Barbarous geographical words of 

 unsettled or no known orthography may, however, be sometimes dressed in quasi- 

 Latin ; thus it is perfect!}' permissible to render aoonalaschkae by unalascce. We 

 make this remark to explain what must seem inconsistent in our use of diacritical 

 marks in some places ; for we mark the vowels long or short as the syllables are 

 pronounced in the language to which the word belongs, not as they would be in 

 Latin. 



